We're On a Road to Nowhere

Jim
Harper weighs in on the so-called "Internet Kill-Switch",
an attempt by Your Federal Government to grab itself some additional
power over the USA bits of the Internet. Harper observes that folks like
Declan
McCullagh are doing a pretty good job of pointing out how broad
and arbitrary the proposed new powers are.

Which would bescary enough, but Harper goes on to point out that by framing
the issue in that way, the civil libertarians have already given up
way too much ground. Instead we should be getting answers to
questions like these:

1) What authority does the government have to seize, or plan to
seize, private assets? Such authority would be highly debatable under
any of the constitutional powers kill-switchers might claim. Indeed, the
constitution protects against, or at least severely limits, takings of
private property in the Fifth Amendment.

and

2) Would it be a good idea to have the government seize
control of the Internet, or parts of it, under some emergency situation?
A government attack on our private communications infrastructure would
almost certainly undercut the reliability and security of our networks,
computers, and data.

Get ready for the quote: "We had to destroy the Internet in order
to save it."

If you can stomach the story of a different government
Internet power grab, read Milton Muleller's
call to action. Specifically:

a
shocking and dangerous turn in U.S. policy toward the global domain
name system. It is a change that would reverse more than a decade of
commitment to a transnational, bottom-up, civil society-led approach to
governance of Internet identifiers, in favor of a top-down policy making
regime dominated by national governments.

Mueller provides a link to an online petition. Can't hurt.

GOP Cowardly Weasel Watch: the House of Representatives had a chance to
derail
Davis-Bacon "prevailing wage" enforcement for projects funded
by the huge spending bill under consideration, via an amendment
offered by Iowa's Steve King. This would result
in lower taxpayer costs, and more competition for unions.
In short, a good idea; unsurprisingly every Democrat voted Nay.
It lost, unfortunately, due to 48 Republicans joining with
them.

Shrek Forever After

Historical recap: after achieving sheer brilliance with the first
two Shrek movies, the filmmakers stumbled badly with
Shrek the Third. The good news is that they managed to
recover a bit with this (apparent) last movie in the series. I chuckled
most of the way through, anyway.

Our big green buddy has settled into a life of domestic bliss with the
beautiful Fiona and three bouncing little ogrelets. Still… he's
an ogre, after all, and a certain part of him misses the old
days of adventure and misanthropy. It's a midlife crisis!

Since Shrek can't do what most of us guys do (run down to the Ford dealer
and start pricing out red Mustang convertibles), he's glum, and
easy pickings for the scheming Rumpelstiltskin. Before you can say
"Frank Capra", we're in It's a Wonderful Life, as Shrek enters
a universe where he's never been born.

Voices are great, especially Eddie Murphy. Lots of clever dialog and
sight gags.
The action sequences are neat (it was a 3-D movie in theaters).
If I were looking to be critical: the sloppy sentimentality level is
high. But that's OK.

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